“The world is too small for loyalties based on race. Or nationality.”
“That is sort of an advanced idea, but I’ll grant you—“
“Just don’t think less of me because I need to tell you these things. I don’t ever want to fight against Americans.”
He was facing Cassidy now, looking straight into his eyes. “Do you see how it is, Bob?”
“Yeah, kid. I see.”
Jiro rested his forearms on the balcony railing and looked between the high-rises at the white ghost of Fuji, just visible against the late-evening sky. “Athena is active ECM.” ECM meant electronic countermeasures. “It detects enemy radar transmissions, then radiates on the same frequency from antennas all over the plane to cancel out the incoming transmissions. Uses a small super-cooled computer.”
“Uh-huh.”
Jiro Kimura could see from the look on Cassidy’s face that he had no appreciation of the advantage that Athena conferred on the plane it protected. “What Athena does, Bob, is make the Zero invisible to radar.” Cassidy’s eyebrows went up. “Low-observable — stealth— technology began when designers tried to minimize the radar return by altering the shape of the craft. Then designers used radar-absorbent materials to the maximum extent practicable. Athena is stealth technology a generation beyond shapes and materials, which, as you know, limit the performance and capabilities of a stealth aircraft.
“The Zero is a conventional aircraft made of composites — a damn big engine, gas tanks stuck everywhere, vectored thrust, boundary layer control on a fixed wing, really extraordinary performance. It’s got all the electronic goodies to help its pilot find the enemy and kill him. Athena hides it.”
“Sounds like a hell of a plane.”
“It is that, Bob, one hell of a fighter plane. It can do simply unbelievable things in the air, and the brass wants us to use it as a straight and level interceptor. Find the enemy, launch missiles, fly home to an instrument approach. Sounds like something a bunch of brass-hatted desk pilots thought up from the safety of a corner office, huh?”
“Well, if you have enough missiles …”
“There are never enough.”
“How many Zeros are there?”
“About a hundred. The number is classified and no one mentions it. I have been trying to count nosewheels, so to speak.”
After a bit, the American colonel asked, “So where is the Japanese government planning on using these things?”
“Russia, I think. But no one had confirmed that.”
“When?”
“Soon. Very soon.”
“Abe is very nationalistic, advocates a larger role for the military in Japanese life. What do the folks in uniform think of all this?”
“Most of them like Abe, like what he is saying. The officers seem to be with him almost to a man.” Jiro paused to gather his thoughts. “The Japanese have much more respect for authority than Americans. They like being part of a large, organized society. It fits them somehow. The American concept of individual freedom …” He shook his head negatively and shrugged. “What about the Mishima disciples?” These ultra-right-wing nationalists were back in the news again, claiming converts in the military and civil service. “Mishima was a fanatic zealot, a fossil, a relic of a bygone age. Everybody knows that. But he preached a return to the noble-warrior concept, the samurai spirit, and that still fascinates a lot of Japanese.”
Bob Cassidy rubbed his face hard, then said, “I guess I have trouble taking Mishima, Abe, this samurai warrior shit — I have trouble taking any of that seriously. All that testosterone ranting and posturing … man, that crap went out everywhere else when gunpowder came in.
There is no such thing as a noble death in the nuclear age. The very term is an oxymoron. Didn’t Hiroshima and Nagasaki teach the Japanese that?”
A grimace crossed Jiro’s face. “Bob, you’re talking to the converted,” he said. “My morals were corrupted in Colorado Springs years ago. I’m just trying to explain.”
“The only noble death is from old age,” Cassidy continued, “but you gotta get there to get it, amigo. That’s getting harder and harder to do these days.”
Shizuko came out of the kitchen carrying a large dish.
“Thanks, Jiro.”
“I wish Shizuko and I were back in Colorado Springs, Bob, sitting on your patio with Sweet Sabrina.”
“We can’t ever go back,” Cassidy told him. “When the song is over, it’s over. I know. I wanted to go back so badly, I almost died.” In the middle of dinner, Jiro said, “The United States is going to have to take a stand, Bob. Atsuko Abe and his friends are crazy, but I don’t think they are crazy enough to strap on the United States.”
“I hope to God you’re right.”
Shizuko acted as if she didn’t understand the English words. “What if you aren’t?” Cassidy asked in a small voice. Jiro pretended he hadn’t heard.
Bob Cassidy’s thoughts went to Sweet Sabrina. It was good, he thought, to be with someone who remembered her fondly.
The U.s. ambassador to Japan was Stanley P. Hanratty, who owned a string of automobile dealerships around Cleveland and Akron. He was balding, overweight, and smart. His middle initial stood for Philip, a name he hated, yet he thought his name looked too informal without a middle name or initial or something, so he used the P. Stanley P. had spent twenty-seven years of his life getting to Japan. He started out selling used cars, mortgaged his house and soul to acquire a used-car sales lot, and then a second, and a third, finally a new car dealership, then another and another and another.
He was arranging the financing on the second dealership when he made his first big political contribution. Occasionally men from humble backgrounds have large ambitions, and Hanratty did: he wanted someday to be an ambassador to a big country.
For years, he listened to windy speeches, shook hands, wrote checks, and watched the political hopefuls come and go. By the time he had eight dealerships, he was giving to political parties in a six-figure way. Finally, he was rewarded with an ambassadorship.
Stanley P. had never forgotten the conversation when one of the members of the new president’s transition team called him about the position.
“The president-elect would like to send your name to the Senate. Mr. Hanratty, he wants you on his team.”
“Guinea-Bis what? How did you say that?”
“Bissau. It’s in Africa, I think.”
“North or south of the equator?”
“Well, sir, I don’t know. I seem to recall that it’s on the west side of the continent, but don’t hold me to that.”
Through the years, Stanley P. had invested a lot of money in his quest, so he didn’t hesitate. With feeling, he said, “You tell the president-elect that I’m honored he thought of me. I’ll be delighted to serve his administration anywhere he wants.”
After he hung up the telephone, he looked the place up in an atlas. U.s. ambassador to Guinea-Bissau!
In Guinea-Bissau, Hanratty did more than luxuriate in the ambassador’s quarters of the embassy, which in truth were not all that luxurious; he studiously applied himself to learning the business of diplomacy. He attacked the State Department’s paper-flow charts and the ins and outs of Bissauan politics with the same common sense, drive, and determination that he used to sell cars. He made shrewd evaluations of local politicians and wrote clear, concise, accurate reports. He didn’t once blame conditions in Guinea-Bissau on United States foreign policy, an attitude that State Department professionals found both unusual and refreshing. He also proved to have an extraordinary quality that endeared him to policy makers in Washington: if given instructions, he followed them to the letter.
After he correctly predicted that a military coup would occur in Guinea-Bissau if a certain person won an election, Hanratty was named ambassador to a nation in the Middle East endangered by fundamentalist Islamic
